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HE KNEW 
WHAT WAS IN 
MAN 

By WILLIAM LOWE BRYAN 


TO THE CLASS OF 1906 

INDIANA UNIVERSITY 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



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Copyright 1913 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 


X 



WISH to 
preach a short 
sermon on the 
text “He 
knew what was in man.” 

In ail that you have 
learned within or without 
the schools, there is nothing 
more important than what 
you know or believe you 
know about human nature. 



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You have been told many 
conflicting things. You 
have been told that men are 
on the whole very good, 
that they are friendly, gen¬ 
erous, trustworthy, and that 
the joy of life lies in friend¬ 
ship and in cooperation 
with your fellows. You 
have been told that where 
men do fall short of what 
they should be, they are 
teachable, that they can be 
reached and touched and 


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changed and made right, 
and that the highest and 
happiest life-work is in 
some way to make men bet¬ 
ter, and then to live and die 
compassed about by their 
gratitude. 


On the other hand, you 
have heard an entirely dif¬ 
ferent story. You have 
heard from many high 
sources that life is essential- 


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ly tragic, that under all the 
shows of civilization and 
religion, life is war, as re¬ 
lentless as ever it was in the 
jungle, and that the hope of 
making society really better 
is forever an illusion. The 
honorable Brutus, it is said, 
the noblest Roman of them 
all, is never able to regen¬ 
erate Rome. He comes at 
last to his Philippi and is 
slain by the corrupt society 
which he has sought to 


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save. The generous Timon, 
they say, who lavishes his 
wealth upon those about 
him, always finds himself 
forsaken in his adversity, 
and can only turn upon 
mankind with rage and 
curses. Prince Hamlet, we 
are told, finds always that 
the state of Denmark is rot¬ 
ten and can only cry, “How 
weary, stale, flat and un¬ 
profitable seem to me all 
the uses of this world!” Ac- 


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cording to this tragic view 
of life, Moses, the nation- 
maker, who leads the peo¬ 
ple out of Egypt through 
the desert toward the Holy 
Land, is always stricken 
with despair, not by his 
enemies but by the per¬ 
versity and treachery of his 
own people, and is always 
forced to cry to God, as 
Moses did, for death as an 
escape from his intolerable 
burden. 








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Now, in hearing and 
weighing these and other 
conflicting views as to what 
the truth is about human 
nature, it is surely worth 
while to hear and to weigh 
the view of Him of whom 
it was said, “He knew what 
was in man.” What did He 
see in us? 

For one thing He saw the 
evil. No man-hater ever 




m « m a 


■m m m 9 


saw it blacker. He knew 
that there is in man lust and 
murder and treachery and 
a covering of hypocrisy. 
He knew no philosophy 
with which to take these 
things lightly. They were 
to Him infinitely more 
dreadful than the lash or 
the crown of thorns. The 
worst of them was disloy¬ 
alty—the disloyalty of His 
friends. “He came unto His 
own, and His own received 


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Him not.” He wept over 
Jerusalem and said, “O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
that killest the prophets, 
and stonest them that are 
sent unto thee, how often 
would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a 
hen doth gather her brood 
under her wings, and ye 
would not!” He was be¬ 
trayed by one of the Twelve 
for money. On the last night 
they all forsook Him and 






t « m m * * ' 


fled. And one of them, that 
night, three times denied 
that he knew his Master. 

If ever a man was justi¬ 
fied in turning with tragic 
hopelessness away from the 
human race, it was Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

Why did He not give us 
up? The answer is, be¬ 
cause He knew what was in 
man. Because underneath 
the man of lust and murder 





and treachery, He saw an¬ 
other man who can not be 
given up. He knew the 
passion of the Prodigal, the 
passion which led him from 
his father’s house into every 
iniquity; but He also knew 
that in the Prodigal there 
was a deeper passion which, 
if awakened, would lead 
him from among the swine 
back to the life where he 
belonged. He knew the 
disloyal cowardice of Peter. 


But He knew that below the 
cowardice and disloyalty 
there was a Peter who 
would stand like a rock in 
a storm. He looked out 
from His Cross upon a jeer¬ 
ing multitude, symbol of 
the vaster multitude who 
forever jeer and crucify 
the good, and there He 
performed His supreme 
miracle. He believed in 
them. He saw what was in 
them. He saw through the 


darkness and through the 
whirlwind of evil passion 
the real multitude, whose 
deepest law, whose deepest 
necessity, is that they shall 
be loyal to each other and 
to their Father in Heaven. 

My children, believe this 
man. Life is tragic as He 
saw. Life is terrible as you 
will know. You may fight 
as the tigers do until your 


•.V.V.V.V.VAW.-.V 


# 


NOV -26 1913 






turn comes to perish. You 
may curse with Timon. 
You may despair with 
Hamlet. Or, with Jesus of 
Nazareth, you may find a 
place within, where there 
are neither curses nor des¬ 
pair nor war, but where 
there lives an unconquer¬ 
able courage for every cir¬ 
cumstance and for every 
task which can come to you 
before the going down of 
the sun. 


.V.NV.V.VW.V.-.W , 1 


m • 






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